E 415 
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.G8 P7 
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A Southern Historian's Appeal 



FOE 



jrXill^ 



E 415 
.9 
■G8 P7 

Copy 1 



BY 



I. EeHsons why the South should Support Horace Greeley 

for President of the United States. 

II. A Reply to Mr. Voorhees' Speech, and other Attacks on 

Mr. Greeley. 

1. j^rH. (jKp:KLr;r Bepokk TUK "Wak. 
'1. lM"ij. Gkeeley Ix the War. 
■'1. Mi;. Greeley Since tj[e VrAK. 

1. Mk. GltEELEY ON- the Grvfryv-dTr P' i-rr-^r^-r 



LYNCHBURG. V a . 

PATIA' REPUKMCAX I'.OOK AND JOB PKINTIXG E.ST ABLISHM EXT. 
1872. 



. *.. 






t^/^ 

'T 

.(^i 



T7 



EXPfvANAlXlRY 



The f«)llowing letters are composed from .some letters, written hastily 
atid with the haggard pen of an invalid, and originally publislied in the 
J vvnehburg (A'^a.) Republican : a paper Avhich wc find eorrectly desig- 
nat<'d i)y the New York iirraA?, in a recent classification of tiie Southern 
nre.-.^, as "the most influential journal of the Democratic ]>arty i i 
Southwest Virginia." If these letters or articles may now reach ol'i \ 
parts of the South, or ;uiy quarters where there may yet linger any 
debate as to Mr. Greeley's claims on the Southern Democratic or Con- 
servative vote, the object of their present re])ublication will have i>een 
attained. ... 

*o1 



A Soiitiiei'ii Historian" s Appeal for Horace lireeley 



To tJie Editors of the LijneJibwg RepuhliGan : 

THE SOUTH, A PARTY FOR HERSELF. 

There are peculiar, very peculiar, reasons why the South slioukl 
support Mr. Greeley for President of the United States ; and I refer to 
them now, that it may be known that whatever the Democratic Conven- 
tion, awaiting call, does, the South has reasons of her own to adhere to 
Mr. Greeley, and to endorse him with all jiossible unanimity. It is 
hardly possible that the Convention Avill repudiate Mr. Greeley ; yet, for 
the ])resent, not considering its action, I would notice here particularly 
Mr. Greeley's claims upon the South, and the expectations she may found 
upon him as a candidate. Believe me it is the grand opportunity of the 
South ; and it arouses me even out of the tedium and incapacity of an 
invalid, (a moribund for nearly tv/o years), to resume a pen which, for 
offices at least of the newspaper, I had thought to have consigned to 
rust, and to charge it with words of counsel and entreaty to my 
countrymen. 

I am at pains to explain, in the outset, the standpoint from which I 
write : — the interests of the South as the South. It is a higher inspiration 
than a partisan one in which I would express myself, and ask the 
participation of my Southern countrymen. A Democrat myself, I yet 
deprecate the too complete identification of the South with the Deuio- 
cratic party; and I believe that, on some occasions, the South has 
interests distinct enough and large enough to constitute a party for 
herself — a new autonomy in the politics of the country. 

The allegiance of the South to the Democratic party is at best but 
slight, and holds but by a mended and frayed strand. It was disni})ted 
by the late war. Since that interval, which was not only a complete 
fissure, but an exasperated breach, the party tie of the South lias been 
knitted up again, only in the most loose and accidental manner. The 
SojLith does not forget that she was prompted into the kst disastrous 
war by the Democratic party, and then deserted by it. Since the war, 
her resumpLion of an alliance v.'ith thli party could not be other- 



4 A. SOUTHERN HISTORIAN'S APPEAL 

wise than feeble and distrustful ; a mere matter of convenience 
to serve present necessities, Avith the implied understanding that -when- 
ever those necessities or the peculiar interests of the South could be better 
served by a departure from tlie Democratic party, she would not hesitate 
to make it, and generally hereafter to hold her own interests superior to 
the technical ol)ligations of any political party, and especially tiiose 
which had once been broken, to her own injury and betrayal. 

THE SUPREME AND PECULIAR WANTS OF THE SOUTH. 

But whatever the sequel at Baltimore, the South has a much better 
reason than her Democratic ])artisanshii), to determine her to i\[r. 
Greeley's support. Her old party ties are, at best, impaired and inco- 
herent, and will scarcely hold against any grave and distinct interests 
which she may haye as a section peculiarly j^laced in the Union. In 
such interests we may find united in the South Democratic Republicans 
and Republican Democrats, conservative white men and conservative 
black men, in brief, >Soiitlierncvs without distinction of old parties ; and 
such precisely are the interests represented in the nomination of Mr. 
Greeley. The great, peculiar want of the South, and that infinitely 
above all considerations of technical party politics, is peace : a want 
which has two aspects : first, that of the relations of the South to the 
General Government, and, second, that of the relations of her own inter- 
nal police and order. Now, this double paci Ideation of the South is' 
what is to be accomplished by the election of Mr. Greeley, and that, too, 
in each branch of the mission, by means at once peculiar and precise. 

PROBLEM OF PACIFICATION OF THE SOUTH. 

1. It will compose the Federal relations of the South, and assure 
peace in that aspect, through the means of universal amnesty and gen- 
erally a policy whose fundamental principles and vital inspiration shall 
be absolute forgiveness of the past. 

2. It will furnish for the first time a point of union between the 
mass of the native whites of the South and the negro voter ; a union 
which is the supreme desideratum of the South, the most distinct and 
necessary condition of her internal peace and future development, that 
which her statesmanship and her ingenuity have heretofore been taxed 
in vain to accomplish, now almost providentially offered her. 

FORWARD, THE NEGRO. 

The bringing together the negro and the " Conservative" whites of 
the South on the question of Mr. Greeley's election, is its happiest and 
most peculiar circumstance. It cannot be doubted that jNIr. Greeley 
will carry off a large portion of the negro vote of the South by virtue of 
his most decided and most romantic record as an abolitionist, that by. 
which the nogrp remembers him as his very Moses In the house of bon- 
dase and in i'ne exodus. Certainly no stronger appeal could be made 
to the gratitude of the negro, a sentiment in which his simple and fervent 




FOR HORACE GREELEY. 5 

nature is said to excel. On tlie other hand, the name of Horace Greeley 
has its own addresses and associations for the white voters of tlie South. 
He represents to them universal amnesty — the imj)ortance of which is 
not the number of persons it would actually relieve, (for in this respect, 
indeed, it is a very small measure), but its moral effect, as a jDiedge to 
the South, given under the emphasis of a i)ublic law, that whatever there 
hud been of offense in the past should l)e accounted or remendjered 
against her no more forever. 

" GO BACK, THIEVES." 

He represents much of generous counsel to the South ; he has reconi- 
niended her-lands to immigration ; he is the natural and sworn enemy 
of the carpet-bagger ; and he is the author of the seutiment far more 
meaning to the South than all the political a])othegms of the day — '' go 
hack, thieves!" He represents whatever may be emollient of the past 
policy of " reconstruction" in a future policy that shall be the declared 
end of pnnition, recrimination and distrust ; and where Grant has 
ottered the bayonet, he is willing to challenge the iriendship and con- 
fidence of the South, and to make them the basis of a soli<l and assured 
pacification. 

THE SOUTH NOT TO ASK TOO JfUCH. 

Any benefits more than these, the South cannot expect, in any cir- 
cumstances, at present ; and any excess in her demands would be only 
likely to risk her utter denial, including that which she might have 
gained by moderate ])etitions. Mr. Greeley, as President, would be able 
to serve her measurably ; his influence in the Kepublican party would 
make his policy towards the South available ; whereas, even if the South 
could elect a pronounced Democrat as President, it would be merely the 
signal to revive against her the suspicion and resentment of a hostile 
majority in Congress, and to repeat the story of Andrew Johnson, whose 
administration, it cannot now be doubted, proved, however contrary to 
its intentions, a positive prejudice to the South, an exasperation of the 
penalties of " Reconstruction." 

SOME PLAIN GREAT FACTS. 

There are some plain great facts in Mr. Greeley's case which it is im- 
possible for the South to ignore, and which it Avill be criminal in her 
to neglect. It is, we repeat, her great opportunity. Here is the fact : 
that Mr. Greeley can, within limits, and those limits which are jjraeti- 
eally jiossible, serve her more effectually than any other man in America, 
even if that man were, the most j)ronouuced partisan that a Democratic 
convention could name. Here is the fact: that Mr. Greeley offers the 
peculiar opportunity — an opportunity growing entirely out of his per- 
sonality — to effect :i union between the native whites of the South and 
the negroes, Avhich Liay naturally ripen into that conciliation and con- 
firmed alliauce of the two v/hich is the first, deepest and most 



C A SOUTHERN HISTORIAN'S APPEAT. 

indispensable want of the SoiUh. Here is the fiict : that Mr. Greeley 
will make the peace of the South a main object of his administration, and 
i)V a puliey and moans which, however its details may bo reserved, aw 
have at last the signilicant satisfaction of knoM'in^' will l)e the opposite 
of that wiiieh he has stigmatized as a " laihiro." 

PEACE ! PEACE I 

.Vnd this aspiration ibr PEACE is so supreme and keen throughout 
tiie land, represents so many interests, unites so many parties, that it, 
alone, unaided by other cries, or superior to them, may prove suflicicut 
to elect Horace Greeley President of the United States. 

THE FAILURE OF GRAXT's ADMIXISTRATIOX. 

The confusions of a great political controversy that is at last to be 
decided bv the peojde, are never as hopeless as they seem. Notwith- 
.standing all the refinements and complications Avhich the ingenuity of 
argument mav impose in such controversy, despite all it may do to 
darken counsel, it will be ibund that some plain dominant facts -will 
invariably rise above these refinements, emerge from the ambitious con- 
fusion of debate, and govern the popular decision. The popular mind, 
indeed, is but little affected by either the ingenuity or accumulation of 
aro-umenis in any cause given to its judgment ; these may serve their 
purposes in answ<n-ing the intellectual wants of a low, or in occupying 
the })rofessional arenas of debate; l)ut generally a few blunt facts whicli 
tlie skill of the dialectician can in no M'ise control, which are simply in- 
contestable, suffice to determine the verdict of the people. This 
sirapliiication of a vexed controversy at the last, the limitation of it 
which the jiopular mind makes to a few governing facts, its summary 
practice of decision in this respect, have been frequently illustrated in 
tlie history of our political contests ; and, if we are not greatly mistaken, 
we are about to obtain a new and striking example of it in the attempted 
elaboration of the im2>euding Presidential campaign, where one single 
plain fact already overrides the confused prospect, and promises to be 
flecisivc of a contest that otherwise it will be quite needless to burden 
■with argument. 

Such'is the fact which no hardihood can gainsay, no argument can 
overcome, no ingenuity hide or diminish, and which alrotidy emerges out 
of tlie mists of controversy — the promontory of the political situation — 
that Grant's administration is a failure, precisely in that respect in which 
it had given the most ostentatious and emphatic pledge of success. AVe 
refer to the attcm])tcd role of " the Great Pacificator." The historical 
mission which av»-aited President Grant was plainly to complete the 
pacification of the country after a painful war, and in pursuance of a 
policy of whicih he had unlimited control. Tlie task was accepted not 
only with alacrity, but pretentiously; the reduction of the country to a 
perjt'ct. ixnd enduring ])cacc w.as to 1;io the great historical feature of Gen- 
eral Grant's Presidential term ; on this he staked liii- ambition, and 



/ 



FOR HORACE GREELEY. 7 

invited the observation unci judgment of tlu; people. He eanie into 
office with the emphasis of the words : " Let us liave peace ;" this Avas 
to be the Ivcy note of his administration, its peculiar inspiration ; it wa>: 
here that he was to command the confidence of tlie people, and to deserve 
their g-reatest rewards. What has become of tliis special and emphatic 
]>ledge, made above all otiiers, and that above all others was to be deci- 
sive of his success or failnre, witli which General Grant entered office, 
and undertook tlie task of government? — A voice ansvv'crs from an 
uucxpectcd quarter. 

THE KU-lvLTJX EEPOlir, " RETUllNE]) TO rEAGlJE ITS [XVENTOKS." 

it Avas some time ago reported that busy hands had distributed from 
M'ashington through the country, not less than sixty thousand copies of 
the majority report of the Ivu-Klux Committee. We rejoice to hear it, 
■\\'e would gladly aid the circulation ; for jiever has any ])a])er gone forth 
from Washington that contains a more damaging exposition, a confes- 
sion, now, thank God, im])0ssible to be recalled, of the downright and 
fatal failure of President Grant's administration. The Ku-Klux re])ort, 
although made with tiie special design to defame the South, and to find 
excuses ibr stretches of arbitrary poMcr, has already recoiled upon its 
inventors, and returns to plague them, as the most disastrous evidence 
yet given to the country to condemn the policy of the Kadical party, 
and to convict their leader of a broken promise, and of a boast brought 
to open and irretrievable siiame. There is nothing so damaging as con- 
ibssions which escape under the influence of a passion which is for the 
nioment superior to the culprit's motive and care to liide his peculiar 
guilt, and has tlius tlirown him entirely oif his guard. Blinded by hate 
and by the intentness of an evil design, the chroniclers of the Ku-Klnx, 
and those mIio liave sown the country with their reports, ajipear never 
to have reflected tliat after the first im])ression they might secure of a 
feeling hostile to tiie South, the next, and inevitable thought that would 
occur to the readers Avould be : if the things descril)ed in these pages be 
true, or if only a tithe of them be so, how is it that a Republican admin- 
istration has so failed of its promises and pledges? — how comes it that 
the South has been so hostilized ? — what can bo tlie prime cause of a con- 
dition so deplorable, and so utterly at variance with what we were led to 
expect when President Grant came into ])OAver with tlu! adjuration of a 
peace to be p>resently realized ? Such reflections are bound to be min- 
gled with own the severest criminations that may involve the South, 
according to tlie s})ecial, yet short-sighted design of her accusers. What- 
ever the allotment of censure on this head, the popular mind finds itself 
making this furtiicr and indispensable reflection : must not the policy 
be essentially defective that with the best conditions for the ])aeification 
of the eountiy, conditions which it recognized on assuming ofiiee, con- 
ditions so secure that it founded on them the most boastful promises and 
assurances, should yet seven years after a war had been closed with the 
ceremonies of complete surrender, and after all the time which said policy 



g A SOUTHERN HISTORIAN 8 APPEAL 

has had for its full and fi'eo experiment, be asking for a militarv ma- 
(rhinery to suppress a ''rebellion/' and confessinff, though unwittingly, 
and in a sinister interest, yet sill the more forcibly on that account, that 
the bavonet has become its indispensable aid and servitor in governing 
tlio country ".' 

Here is the one i'nrA of failure that seems to be decisive — and that, 
too, as President Grant deliberately cliose to make the issue for himself 
— of the claim of the present Administration for a continuation of the 
confidence of the ^Vmericau ])ublic. It is a fact so patent that no inge- 
nuity can conceal it; so dominant that inferior discussions cannot 
subordinate it to themselves ; so pregnant of the hope and interest of 
the countrv that it is no exaggeration to supjjose that it alone may yet 
direct the decision of the people in a political campaign that is to culmi- 
nate in a choice of President. If there is one thing -which the country 
wants more than all else, for Avhich it has incomparable desire, and in 
hopinix for which it has nearly worn out its heart, it is jx^acc. President 
(xrant has not ffiven it; he has forfeited the most distinct and ostenta- 
tious ])ledge ho made, when inaugurated three years ago; and his 
demented followers, struck by the blindness that foreruns their de^tru(•- 
tion, have just ])ublished to the world the certainty of the forfeiture he 
has incurred, and an assurance of the moral and intellectual incompc- 
tencv which it implies! In short, the great liistorical outcome of the 
(^rant Administration is that it has tailed in what it was ]iarticular!y 
appointed and expected to do: a lailurc aggravated in shame 
bv its own confessions seduced from it in another cause, and igno- 
minious in proportion to the height and insolence of the promises with 
which it had once captlvat- d the public confidence. 

A RETROSPECT. 

in the clo.-e of the year 1805, the same man who is now President, 
wrote with the exactness of a military report, and under the obligations 
of an ottieial in(|uiry, that he was " satislied that the mass of thinking 
men of the South accept ihe present situation of afifiiirs in good fliith," 
and that his observations led him " to theconclu.sion that the citizens of 
the Southern States are anxious to return to self-government within the 
Union as soon as possible." In 1809, the author of this assurance 
ascended the Executive chair of the nation. \Vluit had intervened in 
the nieautime'.' fhe distinctly <,'hoscn ])oii<'y of lladical reconstruction 
that had overridden Andrew Johnson's sim]>lcr and readier policy of 
restoration, Avhicli he had inherited from Lincoln. In the midst of that 
]K)licy came the invocation and the apothegm, "let us have peace." 
Xaught has hapj)ened tocross that policy, except of its own making ; there 
has been no mari'ing interruption; no defeat of it possible, unless from 
its own inherent defects. It had a clear lield in the South ; it has sus- 
tained the interruption of no other ])arty in ])ower; it has met vrith no 
extraordinary accidents; there has been nothing to make its results 
exceptional, or other than what are logically due to its own unthwartiMl 



/ 



?0E HORACE GREELEY. 9 

and unrestrained methods of action. Xo^Y, after the fullest and most 
sperate experiment, the confession escapes tliat that policy has been a, 
failure, and a failure of the worst sort! Yet what shall we say of the 
effrontery that, with this confession warm in its mouth, asks for a 
continuation of power and of public confidence ; asking it from a people 
to whose hopes it has given the severest disappointment ; asking it from 
the RejHiblican party Avhich it has robbed of the peculiar prestige on 
wliich it most prided itself, that of "peace-maker" — in ever}" sense, 
even in tlie low one of a partisan appeal, asking it Avith a plain, self- 
confessed unworthiness and an insolence as stark as its sharaelessness is 
supreme I 

THE TRUE MEASURE OF THE HOPE OF THE SOUTH. 

What might have been the results of a policy of kindness and trust 
toM'ards the South, is a question we are not permitted to ansAver out of 
tlic ATrifieations of experience, for the reason that such an experiment 
has never, to any appreciable extent, been tried. But there can be no 
doubt of the failure of the suspicions and punitory policy of " Recon- 
struction;" that. cannot be undone ; and yet there remaiiis some room for 
mollification, and for that mollification we know nothing that can be 
Ix'tter trusted than Mr. Greeley's ])olicv of amnesty, and a thorougli 
a[>peal to tlie generosity of the South to "let bygones be bygones," and 
to iju])rovo the future as from a new date of action. This is the meas- 
ure of the true hope of tlie South. Tlie ])enalties of Reconstruction 
cannot be expunged ; the Constitutional Amendments are fixed and irre- 
versible; yet something may be taken from the sting of present animosi- 
ties and suspicions, the soldier may be disarmed, the carpet-bagger be 
dismissed, the industry of the South be re-assured, and her oonfidence 
he reclaimed, at least on the basis that there shall be no continuation of 
the ])enalties of war, or even of the distrust and recrimination they 
imply. This only sperate and practicable margin of relief left for the 
South is represented by Horace Greeley ; and if the experiment can essen- 
tially be only a partial one, yet better this, better something of departure 
jHid novelty than continuation and possible increase of a policy in which 
(he South is more and more hostilized, and Grant stands to-day in the 
position of one accused by Junius:: — "I Avill not, my lord, call you a 
liar; but I will prove you one !" 

MR. GREELEY IX HIS BEST POSITIOX. 

Horace Greeley comes before the country through the broken promise 
of Gen. Grant, and in that breach stands to best advantage ; the man 
peculiarly calculated to be the Pacificator of the country. Wc do not 
reckon here his other recommendations to office ; we prefer to present 
him in this single strong light, and that which implies his dominant 
claim on the vote and confidence of the South. " ' ' 

In this light, and with his pe(;uliar facult)' to unite the white and 
negro vote, he may carry every Southern State ; and in this case it would 



10 A SOUTHERN HISTORIAN'S APPEAL 

be raaduess for the tSouth to subordinate her influences so large, so dis- 
I inet, weighing- so much in the Presidential campaign, and yet so pecu- 
liarly Southeriiy to the dictation of" any merely political party. 

PERSONAL ESTIMATE OF GREELEY — "THE PHILOSOPHER." 

or Mr. Greeley as a man Ave can scarcely cscajje saying something, in 
view of the strong personal peculiarities Avhich have made his name a 
household word in America. The Avriter does not hesitate to say that 
though differing in some points of politics from jSIr. (xreeley foto ccelo, 
he has always found much to admire in him, and years before his nom- 
ination had deemed it a privilege to sometimes s[)eak to him in tones of 
personal friendship. The man called by popular instinct "The Pliihs- 
npher of the 2/-i6j6)ie/' has alwaysappeareiltousa striking representative 
of the zeal of the enthusiast and the generosity of the disputant. lie is 
an illustration of the power of Candor, in its best sense; teaching the 
sublime lesson that generosity to ()j)ponents, so far from implying a 
weakness or ecpiivocation in our allegiance to Truth, is not only consis- 
tent Avith the highest enthusiasm in that cause, but actually promotes 
such enthusiasm, and realizes a positiA'e power peculiarly its OAvn in the 
support of its cause. The man Avho alloAvs to o})position AvhatcA'cr there 
is of truth in it, ishcAvho has the clearest and fullest conception of Avhnt- 
ever is iu question ; for it is because of the justice and fullness of his <'on- 
c'e))tion that he can afford such recognitions to his opponent, and thcsp 
f'once.ssions, made as they are out of the A'cry s])irit of Truth not only 
consistent with that spirit, but cultivating and enlarging it, have an 
effect to conquer opposition, such as the mere bigot or stickler can never 
have. 

How well are these lessons illustrated in Mr. (jreelev's life I Jn the 
cause of anti-slavery, for instsncc, his zeal was certainly not less than 
that of Wendell Phillips and the other fierce bigots Avho ncA'cr had a 
word of qualification for their opinions. Because he might see sonu* 
clause of condonation, might be the man to forgi\'e Jefl". DaA'is and to 
plead for amnesty for the South, Avas his zeal against "slavery" or 
" rebellion" less in point of sincerity than that of those Avho made an un- 
mitigated outcry — and how infinitely greater Avas it, in res]>ect of 
effectiveness ! Mr. Greeley's characteristic habit of fair alloAvance to his 
opponents has been the secret of his success, and the foundation of a faine 
that is the most emuable in America. It is as representative of the 
"philosophic spirit" that he is best knoAvn and res|)ected, and his Avord 
sought in judgment. There are many other Avriters on the American 
press more brilliant than he ; many intellects Avhich may match his ; and 
yet in the ranks of American journalism not one of his real }>ower, 
measured by effects. To-day this great editor has the distinction of 
wielding a moral poAver Avhich the highest officer or jjlace-holder in the 
land might covet; there is a sort of judicial appeal to this man from all 
controversies in the country — the most distant dis])utes are brought to 
hira, and his opinion on any subject is at once quoted from one end of 



FOR HORACE GREELEY. ll 

America to the other. It is the instance of a peculiar ^jower obtained 
by a long habit of " fairness" in its best sense, which certainly never 
has been Avith the editor of the New York Tribune a weak or compro- 
niising " candor," or at the expense of a real genuine enthusiasm in the 
caTise of what he believes to be true. An example of the philosophic 
spirit, and that highest and most enviable of all reputations whicli it 
buikis up, and that may well be offered for the ambition and aspiration 
of all who in the competitions of life contend for really useful seryice or 
honorable liime. 

THE CROWN. 

Such a reputation is now aptly crowned by a nomination to the high- 
est office in America, proceeding more directly from the People, aa<l 
with less of intermediation to obstruct or discolor its significance as such 
an offering than ever did a Presidential nomination before. This honor 
Mr. Greeley has accepted, (we refer now only to his brief despatcli on 
first hearing the news from Cincinnati,) with a simplicity and directness 
appropriate to the peculiar manner of its offering, and becoming tlu' 
sentiment which he had formerly written in his paper, that "a Presiden- 
tial nomination was a thing neither to be sought nor declined." He has 
not affected the maid's part — " still answer nay, and take it" ; nor has 
he, as one disappointed candidate we wot of at Cincinnati, essayed — 

" Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded, 
To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty." 

There has been a spontaniety on the part of the people in offering 
the greatest honor in their gift to " tiie sage of Chappaqua," and a sim- 
})]e honesty of grateful expression in his accepting it, that makes up one 
of the most pleasing and direct pictures that the country has ever had 
of the people rewarding the patriots who least expected it, at the expense 
of politicians and wire-pullers in the background ; daring its decision 
in the midst of angiy political parties, and at the defiance of ambitious 
rivals, to mark a merit infinitely above that of mere partisanship, and 
too modest to have ever claimed as a reward what with readiness ami 
dignity it yet accepts as a trust ; a true Republican coronation ; — a ))ic- 
ture worthy to be framed as of better days of the Republic, and to be 
appropriately inscribed with the shout said to have been raised on the 
scene — " Hurrah for the second Declaration of Independencer 

Edward A. Pollard. 

Lynchburg, Va., May 8, 1872. 



12 A. SOUTHEEN HIST0RIA3S"'s APPEAL 



il. 

A Reply to Mr. Voorhees' Speech and to Other Attacks on 

Mr. Greeley. 

Ill the speecli against Horace Greeley, whicli ^tr. Voorhees inteijeeteil 
Into the proceedinos of Congress sliortly after the Cincinnati nomination, 
there is one mistake i'rom beginning to end. It was a speecli inrtrodueed 
under a lixlse preten(!e — that of " personal explanation" in rei)ly to a 
newspaper ])aragraph ; — and, us itA\as a mean and insidious violation of 
parliamentary, privileges, so was all its inspiration evil, and Jio one can 
read the speech witliout observing how it is choked and hesitates with 
the expectoration of a private and personal malice. 

But one mistake kills it in the Sontli. It is the supposition that runs 
all through it — that an appeal may yet be made in the South to the ques- 
tions and passions whicli ante-dated or inspired the war ; and that on 
1>hcse Mr. Greeley may be irretrievably condemned in Southern estima- 
tion. This is Mr. Voorhees' fatal mistake, and tliat also of his followers 
among the few imjiracticable Bour'oons wlio ."till hang on to the withered 
tits of B^llona, and Avould 

" Poi»r the sweet milk of concord into hell ;" 

or the yet more contemptible "cow-boys/' wlio lived on the borders of 
the late war, doing the dirty work Avliich all %vars must needs have, and 
who never charged anything more formidable in the field of Mars than 
a transportation wagon or a paymaster's chest. 

GENERAL LEE's EXAMPLE AND COUNSEL. 

Happily, the South has better advisers than these. In a few words it 
may be said that the philosophy which prevails in the South, and the 
counsel notably committed to it by the examples and words of such men 
as Robert E. Lee, is tlmt we should allow to those who ,fought against 
us in the late war the same measure of sincerity and honesty in their 
zeal and devotion which we claim on our side for ourselves ; and that 
on such allowance, no less logical than charitable, we should found the 
only real and genuine reconciliation of which the passions of the past 
war are capable. On this understanding, then, it is quite impossible, 
plainly illogical and unfair, to impeach any Northern man for zeal or 
devotion on his side in the war ; and we repeat 'that it was this under- 
standing that was suggested by General Lee as containing tlie key to 
pacillcation after the war, tlial has since been rooommcndcd by all the 
Christianitv, worth and chivalry of the South, and that is so plainly 
lair, such an obvious version of the " Golden Kule;" and such a reflec- 



FOR HORACE GREELEY. 13 

tiou of common sense, that it is no longer questioned, unless among the 
narrowest of politicians and the most unreasoning of demagogues. 

A TRIBUTE TO Ci^EXERAL LEE. 

We have particularly mentioned here the name uf (General Let. — 
claruiii et venerahile nnmen. in tlie South — since A\e are assured that were 
he living to-day, he would be one of the heartiest supporters that Air, 
Greeley will iind, even in all the abundant enthusiasm of the .South. 
He was the man who, of all others, best explained, the true significance 
and virtue of those much-abused words : " accepting the situation." To 
<me habitually admitted into his counsels, he is said to have frequently 
spoken of the me^ming he attached to his .surrender at Appomatto.v 
Courthouse. ''The surrender of the South," he exjilained, " meant that 
she should nut only abandon her arms, but abandoji, also, all enmity 
and negative position, and accept with cheerful alacrity the changes of 
the time." And he illustrated tliis doctrine in his own conduct, when, 
in conformity to it, and yet with much of that natural elasticity Avith 
which the true hero rises from misfortune, lie took up tlie broken thread 
of his life, resolved k) emerge from I'etirement, and cheerl'ully qualified 
himself for such active employment as tlie brok(Mi fortunes of the Souih 
had to bestow upon him. 

In the lieht of such lessons it has become atjreed in tlie South that 
the honest *' Confederate,'^ the man who now gives tlie best proofs ot" 
wisdom and atiiX'tion for the land he loves, is not he who disputes and 
disparages the restored Federal authority, or resents the results of the 
M'ar by private violence, or shows an unjust temper to the unoffending 
negro. The standard of Southern patriotism is now quite to the con- 
trary. He comes best up to it who gave his whole heart and soul to the 
cause when the war prevailed ; but who, having surrendered, observes 
with a scrupulous and knightly fidelity all its terms and conditions, and 
all the obligations implied by the oaths he took ; who keeps the peace, 
aims at the repose and welfare of his people, and, by example and influ- 
ence, endeavors so to shape the Southern conduct, as to leave the North 
no excuse, either for a vindictive penalty or a railing accusation. And 
especially will he not give occasion to such accusation by impeaching 
the sincerity or zeal of those on the other side, and thus opening a chap- 
ter of recriminations as. needless as they are endless. 

''tu quoque." 

We denounce the attempt of Mr. Voorhees, and that of all of his 
pei-suasion or following, to found now any pi'ejudices in the Southern 
mind against jSlr. Greeley, because he stood manfully and zealously up 
to }m side in the war. We denounce it as illogical, unfair, seditious, 
tending only to usi^loss exasperations, and as containing matter which 
may be justly cast into our own teeth. If Mr. Greeley Avas zealous for 
his side, so were Ave ior ours. But Aviiiie thus denying the Avhole inspi- 
ration of Mr. Voorhees' speech, and protesting that he has opened the 



14 A SOUTHERN HISTORIAN'S APPEAL 

tloor to a controversy that might well have been shut out, the writcJ' 
(lares to engage him even in that controversy, to meet him on his own 
iiictiously raised grounds, and to go with him step by step over the whole 
record of the public life of the Cincinnati nominee, and at the end ol' 
the record thus traversed, to challenge for said nominee the vote, the 
(confidence, and even the enthusiasm of the South. The order of Mr. 
N^oorhees speech is naturally chronological ; at least that order is conve- 
nient enough ibr our steps in the controversy, and we may number our 
articles in reply, as Mr. Greeley hcfore the war, Mr. (ireeley //( the war, 
and Mr. (jreelcv »tnce\\w war. 



[No. 1.] 

MR. GREELEY BEFORE THE A\ AR. 

Mr. Yoorhees conijilains bitterly enough that Mr, Greeley, after favor- 
ing: the rijihts of the Southern States to withdra\v from the Union in 
peace, afterwards joined in the cry of "On to Richmond," and became a 
zealous advocate of the war. Very true ; and perfectly defensible is 
Mr. Greeley here by the very examples of some of our best Southern 
men, mutatis mutandis. What is most remarkable we find this special 
impeachment of Mr. Greeley echoed by some hypercritical Southern 
patriots who are precisely in the analogous or equivalent situation : that 
they opposed secession even bitterly, and yet changed their position as 
Mr. Greeley changed his, when his government and his people resolve<l 
upon war — and have ever claimed it as an honorable distinction that 
they were thus converted ! They were Union men, when, as they claim, 
(though by an exaggeration which we shall presently notice,) that Mr. 
Greeley was a secessionist, and they were secessionists when Mr. Greeley 
was a Union man ; that is all — and now where does the laugh come in, 
or where does the sneer find its place to pinch? We know very well 
that it has generally been esteemed a distinction in the South (we shall 
not argue here with what reason,) that one unwillingly and against his 
individual jireferences took up arms for secession, when his State and 
[)eopIe had decided for it, and, having once taken them up, wielded them 
with a thorough devotion and an undivided zeal that never looked back 
upon the questions of the past. The fame of the great Robert E. Lee 
is precisely in this category, and the quondam Union man, who yet 
fought efficiently for the seceded States, has become a type of peculiar 
honor, and a dear tradition in the South. Surely, we might make the 
justice of a similar distinction for Mr. Greeley, that when his govern- 
ment and people became committed in the war, he went into it, even 
against all his former aspirations ; and that Avhen he did thus go, he 
went with his whole heart, is rather an honor than otherwise, not only as 
measured by the logic of the South turned upon itself, but in the esti- 
mation of all those who think enthusiasm the best quality of -a service 



FOR HORACE GREELEY. 15 

on€]p fairly enlisted, and that whatev(^i' A\'ork is to be done had hetter be 
done heartily and effectually. 

"It Ava.s a maxim of Captain Swosser," says Mrs. Badger (of Dickens' 
" Bleak House"), "speaking in his figurative naval manner, that when 
you make pitch hot, you cannot make it too hot; and that if you have 
only to swab a plank, you should swab it as if Davy Jones was after 
you.'' 

A HI.STORICAI. DLSCOVERV — OONCESSIOX VS. SECKSSIOX. 

Xow, if Mr. Greeley, after having been overruled at AV^ashington,did 
make the war very hot and Avas for finishing it up effectually, he was 
simply a man after Captain Swosser's heart, and ice are not the parties 
to bring against him a railing accusation. But Mr. Greeley's disjjosition 
is even much more defensible than the Union-piper in the South, after- 
wards converted into a secessionist in arms. He never did pipe for 
"secession," ju'operly so called. His record on this point is ill under- 
stood. The writer, as a historical student, has had occasion to examine 
it very carefully, and he thinks he has discovered in it the clew to one 
of the most important jjrinciples of political science that the late war 
involved. Mr. Greeley's i)lan for the withdrawal of the Southern 
States in ])eace, was through concession ratlier than secession ; and the 
South made tlie fatal mistake of attempting, by violence, what, in the 
course of time, it might have accomplished by concession, to a persistent 
and luianimous demand of a considerable body of a people to withdraw 
from an existing government, and set up for themselves. The true 
theory of Republican liberty did, as Mr. Greeley contends, require a 
yielding to such a demand. Such Avas the policy of "Concession ;" it 
would not necessarily weaken what might remain of the Union ; it 
would establish no dangerous precedent against the relict of the Federal 
autiiority, being simply an affirmation of the right of self-government 
under the conditions of the Declaration of Independence; and this])olicv 
Mr. Greeley defended with ingenuity and with an unimpeachable con- 
sistency. But when the South chose the policy of secession rather than 
that of concession, it was at once seen that this ])olicy involved the fact 
of the Union existing only at the caprice of any single State — " a mere 
ro})e of sand ;" that if the doctrine was allowed that any one State might 
\vithdraw without the concession or allowance of the others, the Federal 
authority would be completely at an end, and even what of the North 
preferred to abide in the Union would establish a precedent against her- 
self of stultification and suicide. The great historical fact is now un- 
questionable that the chief argument which determined the North for 
war was that the right of "secession" involved the destructibility, at all 
times and on all occasions, of even Avhat of the government Avas left to them 
at Washington ; and the cry " Ave must have a government " became the 
}X)pular deeantatum Avith Avhich the North Avent into the war. Noav the 
right of " concession " involved no such consequences, had no such 
entanglements with a poptdar clamor ; and it was coneesf^iou that Mr. 



1^ A SOUTHEEX HISTORIAN/s APPEAL 



Greeley plead for — not that the States should say " Ave shall go ;" h 
that the North should say ''you 12:0, by our permission, and even wi 



but 

. nth 

our !2;ood "will — ^vay^vard sisters, depart in peace." 

But this is a curiosity of historical vindication so far removed in tirao 
and indeed so little pertinent to the position that Ave have taken tliat 
Mr. Greeley's zeal in tlie Avar is not now to l)e challenged at all in the 
South, that Ave cut it short ; and finding ourselves on the confines of 
space allotted to ns have only to remind our readers that Ave shall con- 
tinue the discussion. 



[Xo. L>.] 

MK. GREELEY IX THE WAK. 

Havinjr considered INfr, Greeley's position before the Avar, it follows to 
view him, flagrante hello, and then to conclude Avith Avhat is infinitely 
most important : his acts and sentiments since the Avar, and to the pres- 
ent date. W(^ have already prepared the reader to find Mr. Greeley 
very Avarm Avhile the AA-ar AA'as flagrant; he AA^as alAvays for a vigorous 
prosecution of the Xorthern arras; in fact, Ave belieA'C that he Avas the 
author of the jihrasc in Avhich the Xorthern aspiration Avas fretjuently 
expressed and became notorious in cjuotation marks — "' a short, sharp 
'and decisive Avar." Mr. Greeley, " a man of peace" essentially, yet 
ibund it perfectly consistent Avith th^s character, Avhen liis jirefcrenc*' 
for ]K"ac«' AVi-iS overruled, to demand tliat the Avar should be presseil \\iHi 
vi<:or so as to make its painful Avork as short and conclusive as possible. 
There is mt contradiction Iscrebetwef^n the two adA'Ocacies of ])eace in tlip 
first instance, and A'igorons war as the alternati\-e. 

Mr. Gn^clev seems to haA'c merely reflected I lie ])Iiilosophy of Polo- 
n!ii.o in the ]>lav of llamlef — Avliat iias generally been taken as a very 
innxim of])o1emical connscl : 

■• IJewai !• 
Ot'enliaiicc to a rjiKirrel, but heln;^' in 
Hear it, that the opposer ma v be'!\'arc of thee.' 

And 1)A- ihr Avav, is there not a striking likeness of character betAA-een 
the "sage of Chap]>aqua" and this Avise old Polonlvs, Avho, Avith all that 
is laughable about him and the simplicity of character that the prince 
lAvits, has yet such sage and genial philosophy in his slecA^e, and despite 
all his eccentricities is yet by far thr' kindesf-hcarted and the Avisest- 
mindcd man in the Court of Denmark. 

WAR IS CKUELTV. 

*' War is cruelty," and although Ave do not admit the )i€qidtiir of the 
sentiment as Sherman once announced it to the ^layor of Atlanta, that 
" you cannot refine it," aa'c must confess that it is scarcely more than a 
question of casuistry Avhat measures of harshness may be admitted into 
a Avar, as long as it is sIioavu that such measures plainly conduce to its 



FOR HORACE GREELEY. 17 

rapid termination. And yet it may be claimed esj^ecially for Mr. 
Greeley that though urging a vigorous prosecution of hostilities, he 
never stained such recommendations Avith a suggestion of wanton re- 
venge, or of any measure not accounted in the codes of legitimate war- 
fare. He certainly never Ment as far as Stonewall Jackson, who 
recommended on our side the black fiac/, and ingeniously defended it as 
a. means of shortening the war. All that can V)e said against Mr. Gree- 
ley is that he Mas a warm encourager of the war within limits in 
which we ourselves Avere thoroughly responsive to him, giving just the 
same animation to our side of the contest ; and this character we have 
shown to be entirely consistent with the pacific antecedents of the man, 
his humane disposition, his honor, and what he conceived to be his 
patriotic duty. Had he been tame or indifferent in the war, he never 
A\ould liave won that respect M'hich it is now remarkable that he has 
jx^culiarly in that class of po})ulation in the South which representspar 
r.rccUenee her '' chivalry" — a sentiment that can honor earnestness even 
in its enemies, and appreciate generosity, even though it be the gift of 
victors, and there be on it the colors of remembrance of a former 
l)ittcnK'SS. 

MR. (;REE1,EA' and the new YORK TRIBUNE. 

1 b'tv \v(! must notice especially one grossness in tJic misrepresentations 
o{" Mr. (ireeley now current in a hostile or disingenuous press. It is to 
saddle him with a responsibility for all the sentiments c)-uel or es])ecially 
offensiNc to the South, which appeared in the New A^ork Tribune during 
four years of the war; and that Avithout the least evidence or preience 
o{' evideuce <jf his ])ersonal authorship of the obnoxious excerpts. Thus 
we lind going the ]"ounds of a pliable Southern press a, paragraph from 
the Tribune of LSdl, hoping that the "rebels" might return to devasta- 
ted homes and read the penalties of their rebellion in the anxious eyes 
of their wives and the rags of their children ! — and this evil aspiration 
is at once ascribed to Horace (ireeley, as if it had assuredly come from 
his heart and hand. Such accusations are gro.ss with malice or with 
ignorance. Every editor, whose experience has been beyond the small 
field and scanty cares of a country newspaper, knoAvs that, to a journal 
like the Xcav York Tribune is attached a numerous corps of Avriters ; he 
must be sensible that Mr. Greeley, Avith his various employments char- 
acteristic of the man, probably never A\-rote- a tithe of its editorial mat- 
ter; and he must reflect hoAvimfair it is to hold him responsible, in such 
a sitiiatioi), for cA'erV utterance in Avhicli his antliorship is not A^isible or 
acknowledged. No public man in the country Avho had ever been an 
editor, could stand the crucial test of being bound to CA^ery sentiment 
ills pajier had uttered, and simply because of his editorial tenure. That 
might make him legally responsible, but surely not morally or popularly 
responsible for Avhat he himself never Avrote or dictated or advised — a 
matter in Avhioh he had neither authorship nor privity. This AA'riter 
recollects John M. Daniel once Avriting in the Richmond ^Ebammer, Avith 



18 A SOUTHERN HISTORIAN'S APPEAL 

referpiice to the mortality of Federal prisoners, thai s(;!itimeii(;ilism in 
the extermination of Yankees would be as much out of place as moral- 
\y.'\n^ to interrupt the employment ofkiUincj chinches!" Now the un- 
dersigned would think it very hard that this odious sentiment should 
now be nailed at his dooi's, merely because he was editorially connected 
with the Examiner, and when the fact was that he was neither its author 
or approver. If there is any class that should do Mr. Greeley justice 
in separating him from his journal, or at least not confounding- him with 
all the hasty and multitudinous expressions Avliich a metropolitan daily 
paper must needs pour out from day to day, it is his brother editors avIio, 
from professional acquaintance with the subject, best know the injustice 
of such a strained and confused identification, and who would shrink 
(rom its imposition upon themselves. It is of their own interest, and 
<»r a Just eMjjrif du corps, that they should declare for the simple, ])laiii 
and all-sufficient rule of responsibility : thatMr. (ire^ley should be ideii- 
liiied with his ]m])er only Avhere his authorship Avas visible, or there were 
some facts other than his general title of editor to make it the subject of 
implication, 

A i^UESTION OF '^INTERNA!/' EVIDENCK. 

And now we go further, and say that the force of im])lica(ion is de- 
rid edly against Mr. (ireeley's being the author of any suclv cruel and 
savage sentiments as the one cited above for illustration. There is a 
kiuil of evidence that is known as "internal" or subjective, which, 
1 hough it may require some refinement of conception to appreciate, h.as 
I he quality of being as certain in its conclusions as testimony derived 
(Vom outward sources or the very hardest facts of the Gradgriud school. 
Now with such infernal evidence applied in ]Mr. (Ireeley's case, Ave are 
jnorally sure that he could never have been the author of any sentiment oi" 
^va)ltou revenge in the war ; simply because Ave Avell know that there is 
no bitterness in the composition of the man to originate such sentiments. 
Xot only are they inconsistent Avith Avhat he is known to liaA'c Avritt(Mi 
or done in the Avar, but they are im])ossible from tlie A'cry nature of the 
man. It is one of those gushing natures, easily ])rompted in any caus(! 
(hat evokes enthusiasm, and yet too simple and direct in its enthusiasm 
lo have mixed Avith even its Avildest flow the debasing tributary of ])er- 
sonal passions or the reptile under-current of hate and rcA'enge. If I\Ir. 
(Jreeley is the subject of excitements, they are yet manly excitements ; if 
a fanatic, yet a humane fanatic ; if of frothy moods, yet mixed Avitli tlx" 
" milk of human kindness." With such simplicity of character cruelty 
is incompatible. A life so busy and earnest does not delay itself Avita 
the littleness of personal quarrels, or embarrass itself Avith any other 
|)assions than those Avhich are to contribute to the success of the cause it 
lias appointed for itself. KeA'^euge is but a poor economy of time, e\'cn 
if not condennied in other respects. Mqu Avith a real ])urpose in life 
cannot afford the aside occupations of personal hatred and controversy. 

Doubtless there Avere those in the ranks of our Northern (Miemies in 



FOR HORACE GREELEY. 1 Tl 

the lute WHY who thought with old murdering Meg Murdocksou that 
'^ revenge was the sweetest morsel ever cooked in hell." But no such 
enemy was Horace Greeley, and we may imagine him replying as tiu' 
sturdy interlocutor of the old hag in Walter Scott's novel does reply : 

"■ then let the devil keep it for his own eating, for if I like 

its sauce." (And if Mr. Greeley did fill up the blank with what Byron, 

speaki]ig of the national oath, calls "the honest English ," we 

may believe that it was like " Uncle Toby's" oath, let slip in such a gale 
and Avai-nith of virtue, that when the accusing angel flew with it to the 
registrv of heaven, the recording angel wrote down the word, tlien " let 
ilill a tear upon it, and blotted it out forever.") 

" QUITS." 

It Is said that Mr. Greeley abused and caricatured the South in the 
v.ar. A\niat if he did? Was ever a man so basted and roasted with 
Southern abuse as he was? and if he is willing to cry "quits," we think 
lie lias even the worse of the bargain, and, at any rate, M'e are not in- 
clined to make any merit of our consent to it. 

THE PEACEMAKER AT NIAGARA PALLS. 

But there is one fiict not yet related by us in Mr. Greeley's war-record, 
of which Mr. Voorhees and the defamers who follow his lead seem to 
I>e strangely forgetful, and w^hich is worth more than all the other spec- 
ulations we have just reviewed as to the philosopher's real animus in 
the war. It is that he, of all other men in the North, living or dead, 
made in the progress of hostilities the most earnest and repeated attempts 
to effect peace, and a peace far more favorable to the South than M'hat 
she eventually realized. So busy was he with schemes of peace, so eager 
on every possible occasion when bethought an effort at negotiation might 
be thrust into the jaws of the war, that he came to be an object of ridi- 
cule in this res])ect. Though he reasonably urged that the shortest road 
to peace was to be cut out by a vigorous use of the sword, he was con- 
stantly imagining that he saw the desired end, and might grasp the 
apparition of his hopes ; he had " peace on the brain ;" he was con- 
stantly proposing it, hunting it, devising it ; and we repeat, it w^is a 
peace in which he would notoriously have shown a much greater gen- 
erosity to the South than that w^hich her persistence in the war eventu- 
ally lost her. 

What has Mr. Voorhees to say to this? Why is he conveniently 
silent or slighting of Mr. Greeley's noble visit to Canada, to meet on 
the borders of a foreign country commissioners from the South, to aid 
them in a mission for peace, to demand ^or them access to Washington, 
and to give them his countenance and support, at the risk of all the 
clamor which the hatred and suspicion of the North could raise. The 
brave old man then faced all the consequences of an effort made for hu- 
manity, and for a peace that would have then secured to the South eom- 
pensatioii for her slaves and other measures of generosity, iipou which 



20 A SOUTHERN HISTORIAN'S APPEAL 

if we can now look back only in a spirit of nseless regret, at least, lot it 
not be one of ungenerous foi'getting of the person who was the unboughl 
intermediary and counsel of our unavailing suit. Mr. Greeley in this 
business left his own for weeks; lie travelled to and from Washington ; 
he incurretl suspicion and various unpleasantness ; he was snubbed bv 
Mr. Lincohi in that famous tlisrespect of his reply " /o all ir/iom if may 
eu/a'crn ;'^ he Avas traduced as the conlldant and associate of " rebels ;', 
yet he endured all — and fur what? Let the gratitude of the South an- 
swer, rather than the " restless impertinence" of Mr. Yoorhees to make 
reply in a matter to which he is alien, and to belittle that of which he 
himself was no giver, and concerning which lie has in his own conduct 
and ])osition no right of criticism. 

^'OX ET PRyETEUEA NIHIL. 

In what corner of the country "was Mr. Voorhees hid away and silent, 
when Mr. Greeley was breasting the storm of popular clamor, and 
iningling with the roar of Niagara a brave and heroic aspiration, thougli 
a drownetl one, for the reconciled elements of war? In what napkin 
was laid away his precious eloquence, when Horace Greeley " in his right 
hand carried gentle peace to silence envious tongues?" In what has this 
" Daniel come to judgment" been serviceable to the South, to claim the 
office and discretion of deciding the claims which other men may make 
upon her gratitude ? What right or propriety in him to speak for the 
South on a question so delicate and so peculiar to herself? Mr. Voor- 
hees is known in the South chiefly as a man who once made a pleasant 
speech at the University of Virginia, and has since made other soplio- 
morical and Turvydrop-y speeches, of which the burden is chiefly Tur- 
veydrops — " Woman, lovely Avoman, what a sex you are !" — and such 
college boy's stock subjects of Avar as the Spartan mothers dishing their 
dead sons on shields and the Carthagenian boAV-strings vs. modern chig- 
nons. But CA'cn all this feminine and loA'cly eloquence giA'cs him no 
title to regulate sentimentalism for the South, and to decide Avhat shall 
be the measure of her thanks as betAveen the Greeleys Avho have done 
her some rm? service, and the Voorheeses Avho haA^e been barren of every- 
thing but Avords, and these Voorheesy, Avhee/y, a vapor of A'olubility and 
a vanity in the vocative case I 

A REMARKABLE LETTER BROUGHT TO LIGHT. 

One mote cA'idencc of Mr. Greeley's animus in the Avar, and we are 
willingly done Avith this part of our subject, to proceed to Avhat is far 
more vital and interesting. It is an evidence Avhich, though dated 
after the surrender of Lee, properly belongs to the division of our sub- 
ject Avhich hus undertaken to shoAv Mr. Greeley's feelings in the Avar ; 
since, at the date referred to, so far from having had time to change his 
feelings, all the passions of the Avav, Avere from ])eculiar causes, instead 
of declined, at their uppormosi. This significant evidence, and which 
reflects so much light on _\ir. Greeley's Avar record, is a letter copied 



For. HORACE C;REELEy. 21 

below; and of which, beioro tlic reader's iilteiitioji reaches it, we would 
relate briefly .some circunistances. It Avas written to a private citizen in 
the South, without a tliought of publication, and thus is warranted for 
its sincerity. It was written wlien the passions of the war were yet 
most enraged ; Avhen the whole heart of the North Avas throbbing under 
the news of Mr. Lincoln's assassination; wlien the publi(^ mind yet 
burned with a ])romise of a i)erson not less or other than Andrew John- 
sou, that "the rebel leaders should b(^ Ining as high as Raman ;" when 
all around Mr. Greeley were sounds of rage and re\'ilings, and men 
spitting in hissings from their lips the (curses that writhed upon them. 
At such a time, and in such suiTOundings, Mr. Greeley wrote the follow- 
ing letter. It is conveniently brief — and every ((iH'cley paper in the 
South might put it at the head of its colunms: 

OKncE OF The TpaBUNt:, 1 
New Yokk, May 10, I860, j 
3/1/ Dear Sir — I have yours of the cSth, ior which I thank you. I heartily concur 
with your view ol' what should be our luitionui policy, and am dohig my utmost to have 
mercy and rnagrumtmlty its ruling attributes. Only let the late insurgents join with m 
in saying Slavery is no more, and i think we shall gradually mould the public will tn 
our views. Just now the assassination of President Lincoln has made the North furious ; 
but we shall outgrow that. I shall not hesitate to labor and sufier reproach in the ser- 
vice of Heavoi-blessed charity and mercy. Yours, Horace Gkeeley. 

In another article we shall show how faithfully Mr. Greeley has fill- 
filled the pledges of this letter, and how truly he has incurred the "re- 
proach " wdiich he foresaw. But even here, we cannot withhold some 
words of immediate commentary on it. Heaven's blessing, say we, on 
the man who thus designated with its blessing the charity he invoked ! 
On reading such a letter, the South may feel its heart turning in its 
bosom. The man who wrote it has laid all humanity under tribute. 
The whole American people can never too greatly honor him ; there can 
be no excess, no weariness in the tribute bearers, no possible protest of 
envy that the pile is too high, or its pretence of lazy unwillingness, 
because praise has become laborious — and for one simple reason, r/c. : 
that in honorinc; him thev are honoring themselves. 



[No. 3.] 
MR. GREELEY SINCE THE WAR. 

Mr. Voorhees thinks Mr. Greeley's bail-bond for Jeff. Davis " a piece 
of restless impertinence ;" again, it w^is " mock philanthropy ;" and then 
he facetiously remarks that " it is too narrow a plank lor any party to 
stand on." Whereupon, the reporter interpolates, " Laughter and ap- 
plause from the Republican benches." 

The member from Indiana makes a coarse appreciation of this act of 
Mr. Greeley, as an alfair merely of money, in which Mr. Greeley really 
took no risk, and a\; s superserviceable. " He takes no account wdiatever 
of the r/iora/ significHUce of the act, the generosity which impelled, and 



22 A SOUTHERN HISTORIAN'S APPEAT, 

the courage wliicli sustained Mr. Greeley in facing out the clamor ot'liis 
own party, and incurring a prejudice that has harrassed him to this day, 
to do an act which "mercy and magnanimity" alone moved him to do, 
in which at that time he could possibly have discovered no interest of 
selfishness, but, on the contrary, saAv plainly his own condemnation and 
loss, and the sources of a persecution for years. Base and unjust must 
be tiie mind that could omit these noble aspects of the case, and impose 
upon it a coarse jeer, founded upon a pettifogger's estimate of a gi'eat 
moral stake, in the dollars and cents which were only its counters. Ar- 
cording to the pettifogger's estimate, Bassanio's tender of surety lo 
Shylock was a piece of " restless impertinence " for his friend, and a 
worthless thing not to be accounted in his favor, a " mere matter of 
form," since he was never enforced to pay it ; and according to the same 
logic, the world has made a very undue fuss about that little aft'air of 
Judas' " thirty pieces of silver," which any one of the apostles luight 
have jjlanked down to the greedy Judas, and thus have saved the " rest- 
less impertinence " of a very unnecessary sacrifice. 

" POETICAL JUSTICE." 

The generosity of Mr. Greeley's act and the penalties it nobly incur- 
red have been so abundantly related, of late, that we shall not dwell 
upon them. We have only to add one suggestion. It is how striking 
and beautiful is the poetical justice by which there appears now a pros- 
pect of a good and noble act, the consequences of which have been to 
Mr. Greeley for many years only loss and prejudice and reproach, now 
returning to him as a benefit, the long-delayed, but sure reward of virtue, 
the "bread ciist upon the waters" found again, and its bitterness turned 
into a savor of sweetness and nourishing. Now, it is the South that 
must do this justice to Mr. Greeley, this retaliation upon revilers, alike, 
his and hers. It is she that must complete this apt and admirable pic- 
ture; and surely she will not neglect an opportunity thus to adorn 
herself as a Nemesis, and to complete the circle of a situation in which 
slie is to stand as a beautiful and majestic figure of retribution on tlic 
one hand, and reward on the other. 

A COMPARISON THAT IS ODIOUS. 

In- his base estimate of Mr. Greeley's surety referred to, Mr. Voorhees 
degrades it by a comparison with the protection which General Grant 
gave to the paroles of Gens. Lee and Johnston, so as to save them from 
arrest. But the two acts are essentially incomparable ; and really no 
ingenuous mind could have attempted a parallel so impossible. Gen. 
Grant was simply bound to do what he had expressly agreed to do, when 
he negotiated J^ee's and Johnston's surrender. Mr. Greeley had no such 
obligation upon him to relieve Mr. Davis from prison. Gen. Grant 
simply did what had been " nominated in the bond" he gave, and which 
he could not have escaped Avithout manifest disgrace. Mr. Greelev did 
what he vvas iu nowise constrained to do, what he was under no compul- 



FOR HOEACE GREELEY.' 2S 

pion to do, what he might have avoided, with perfect consistencv and 
saf(^ty to his .reputation ; in short, he " went out of liis way," like the 
j^ood Samaritan, to do it, and he did it simply and purely becau,f<e itiraf< 
rifj/if. A gentleman who is known to be Mr. Davis' ]n-ivate secretary, 
and thus intimately conversant with the circumstances of Mr. Greeley's 
iut(>rmediation to relieve him from a nearly fatal imprisonment, relates 
what influences were used to dissuade Mr. Greeley from his purpose ; 
\vhile on the other side there was nothing pleading but "heaven blessed 
charity." He was told that, by signing Mr. Davis' bail-bond, he would 
lose the election he was then standing for as United States Senator from 
New York ; he would lose thousands of subscribers to the Tribune, and 
to his books ; he would lose money, place, influence, and even the confi- 
dence of the friends who had thus surrounded him to entreat him to a 
(h'fi'erent course. And "what Avas the reply ? "Gentlemen, I knoAv all 
these things, but what I am to do is right, cDul I'll do it!'' Did Mr. 
N'oorhees, from all the fulness of his own rhetorical rc;]wrtoire, and in all 
his verbose life, ever produce words so noble as this little string of mo- 
nosyllables ? Never mind the " curls" and flourishes, did his rhetorical 
whip ever crack like that ? 

>rR. greeley'8 advocacy of amnesty. 

As a fit and precise counterpart to Mr. Voorhees' coarse and unsenti- 
mental estimate of the Davis bail-bond, we find the New York Woi'M, 
the mouth-piece of a disreputable Wall street brokerage, declaring that 
Mr. Greeley's recommendation of amnesty is a very little and unmeaning 
thing, " the accommodation of a few elderly gentlemen in the South," 
<(uite inconsiderable, measured by the magnitude of other public inter- 
ests. In each instance, the moral significance of the act is omitted or 
disesteemed. No account is made of the merit of Mr. Greeley being the 
first to speak for universal amnesty, and in sustaining it through an evil 
report similar to that which dogged his intermediation for Mr. Davis, 
and aided to aggravate the suspicion of his " tenderness for rebels." 
And the amnesty he plead for is, at the JVorld's suggestion, to be basely 
interpreted, even by its beneficiaries, as a thing for little thanks, Avhen 
it is Avell known that the construction which JNIr. Greeley put on this 
jn(>asure was that it meant the entire forgiveness of the South, the pledge, 
under a seal of public law, that the whole punitory policy of recon- 
struction, Avas ended, and a confirmation of the ancient friendship that 
long ante-dated the war and founded the Union. All the sublime moral 
significance of the measure, its real import, is set aside by the Woi-ld, to 
make a degrading arithmetical estimate, logically fdse throughout, since 
■d principle, and not ^jcrsons, is the question. 

AN UNDESIGNED TRIBUTE TO MR. CKEELEY. 

Why is it that the administration party at Washington \\ us only since 
the Cincinnati nomination Avorked up to pass an amnesty bill, though a 
dinted one ? ' Is not, indeed, this measure, considering the time and cir- 



24 A SOUTHERN historian's APPEAL 

rnmsta nce"^ in which it wan pasbed, the must powerful and exceeding 
tribute that could have been paid to Mr. Greeley, though quite other- 
Avise designed ? Is it not the confession tliat JMr. Greeley was right, 
and seeing that he has become popular and gathering support, as the 
advocate of amnestv, tlie administration party would no\\' cut in and 
attem]it to rob hira of his w-ell-earued laurels, and to outbid him on a 
question which they had formerly, repeatedly, and of their OAvn freest 
motion, decided to the contrary. But the game was too late — like tliat 
of Grant's noiv discountenancing carpet-baggers, since he has seen Gree- 
Icv's popularity on that side of the ([uestion also. We repeat, the 
amnesty bill, ])assed when and as it was, will prove merely a contribu- 
fion to Greeley; and as such we welcome the blundering attempt of tht; 
.Vdministration at deception. The ])eo[)le will read it in these plain and 
unavoidable words: the trllmte ivJiich hypocris}/ jxiys to virtue. 

THE CINCINNATI NOMINATION AT AV'OKK. 

The effect uf the Cincinnati nomination, Avhen first amiouneed at 
Washington, is a remarkable ])art of its history. As results, wrung 
irom the existing iniquity at Washington, wc had, first, the grudging 
amnestv ; next, (I rant's haste to avow, for the future, the discoui-agemenf 
of carpet-baggers ; and, as the Avork of the same drastic dose of (ii-ec- 
lev's virtue, the hesitation of the Republican ])arty in Congress on that 
al)omination, the Ku-Klux bill. .Vll these things. Avere the i)lain resnhs 
of the alarm Avin'ch the (ire(>lev nomination had giA-en to the WashioL;- 
lon Administration ; they Avere compelitions to head off his popularity ; 
i\n(] yet avc doubt not that they Avill prove the most direct and cHcctiv 
'•ontributioiis Avliich hav(> yet, heen inade, to increa.se, yidhev than lo nnl- 
lifv, Mr. Greeley's popularity, and to insure liis election. 

It is obvious, and tlie people Avill ])lainly judge, that the.se concessions 
of tlie Grant administration liaA'c only been affected to meet the demands 
of po))iilaritv in the coming Presidentiril election; and that, if lie should 
be re-(^k>cted, he Avould Ix* most likely to revenge these conecj^sions by 
an added an<l aggravated icsumption of <k\spo(ic ruk-. It is tlie usual 
course of hypocrisy thus r(> revenw the tribute Avhich it has been com- 
pelled to })ay to virtue, and Avhenitdoes throw off the mask andresume 
its original character, it is notorious that it Avill be viler and more offen- 
sive than ever. 

Meanwhile the SontluAvelcomcs Avhatevcr tlicrc may be of better for- 
tune to herself in these concessions, no matter Avhat their motive, andas 
long as they may last; but she is not so dnll oi- ungracious as not to re- 
cognize that their true soxu-ce is in Horace (jrrecley, and^'that her rewards 
of gmtitude are to be ])aid there. If bis nomination — the mere influ- 
ence of his name — has accom])lished so 'much for us, Avhatmay avc not 
expect from his election, and the full and lionest realization of the virtue 
of his principles? 

THE TRUE ESTIaAIATE OF MK. (aiEELEV's (.J.AIMS ON TJIE .SOUTH. 

But it is not what Mr. Greeley has done in the past, or Avhat the virtue 



FOR HORACE GREELEY. 25 

of his name is now doing: liis surety for Mr. Davis; his advocacy of 
amnesty; his denunciation of carpet-baggers, and his pledge to dismiss 
lhcm from the South; his wcll-remerabercd interposition to save the 
State of Virginia from Canby's application of the test oath to her Legis- 
lature ; his interposition, again, to save the same State from the " Under- 
wood Constitution," by prevailing upon the government at Washington 
to allow a purging vote upon it — the issue, indeed, which founded the 
'^ Conservative" party in Virginia; his earnest attempts to procure 
immigration for the South — not even [all tliese things, though com- 
mendable, each, in its own circumstances, which aiford the full and just 
measure of his claims upon the South. They are but the outward and 
external incidents of the spirit of his pledge of 1805, to make "mercy 
and magnanimity the ruling attributes " of the government in the South. 
And it is through the broad invocation of this spirit, rather than through 
any record of particular acts, ambitious for mere length of numeration, 
that A\-e would claim for him the gratitude and confidence and rewarding- 
vote of th<^ South. As long as we may be sure that such is the spirit 
of the man, the South may trust him for all details, and that he 
Avill deal, as she may justly desire, with all future developments as they 
arise. 

THE VIOKSBURG SPEECH. 

Thf^ .-.!)irit tjjat can utter, as Mr. Greeley did, in IS71, at Vicks^'"'^' 
the "iiope that the time might come Avhen the whole American people, 
North as well as South, might take a jiride in the military achievements 
of Lee and Stonewall Jackson," is safe enough for the South. Nor i? 
it, by any po^;sibility"of just construction, offensive to the North; since 
it simply puts between North and South the ground of a common 
understanding, and by the possibility of common sources of pride, sug- 
gests that most perfect reconciliation, which consults the feelings, as well 
as serves the interests of each of its parties. 

WANTED — AN HONEST GOVERNMENT. 

And, though the present writer is treating here specially of the South^s 
interest in ]\ir. Greeley's election, he may yet remark how, in one nota- 
ble particular, it is coincident with an aspiration, and that a supreme 
one, of the whole coui^ry. 

Not only does the South groan from fi-auds and spoliations, but there 
is such rottenness wherever the Administration at Washington has a 
place or an ap])ointment, wherever the black hand of its patronage or 
the coi-rn])ting rod of its power reaches, our ]->ublic life so reeks every- 
where with defi-lement, that one cry now goes up from the Avhole country 
Avith a sui)remacy and a pathos never known before. It is the cry for 
HONESTY. So rare and precious has now become this virtue in our 
[)ublic life, so exceptional, so conspicuous from rarity and so valuable 
from necessity, that it, alone, should elect Horace Greeley President of 



26 A SOUTHERN HISTORIAN'S APPEAL 

the Uaitcd States, and ;veigh down cDm petit ion. rypn if nil ntjier claims 
were but as dust in the balance. 

"RANK U ITll sisriClON," 

Tl has been Mell and acKtely said that the eountrv wants a Presidedl 
who shall be "above suspicion, yet luiver beyond inv(;stie,'a<if»n/' Gen- 
p)*al Grant lias confounded these two as])ects of the popnlai* vigilance. 
In ininuiring' iiiniself against investigation, he has bnt opened the door, 
on the other liand, to a torrent oi' suspicion that has already overwhelmed 
him. It matters not that he may come scathless from investigating 
committee.-i of (Jongress, that he may secure himself technically againsi 
convictions, and effect a retreat nnder the Scotch verdi(;t oi" " \\o\ 
prov(!n ;" the fact remains that he is so raidc with suspicion, and lii> 
character so rotted away nnder it, that the honor of the man is gone, 
and hi' can no longer be useful in a ]>nblic station. This is stating \hr 
case in the jnildest for))i. 

THE HONOJ^ OF (iOVKllNMENT. 

Where wc might practice the easy arts of invectives or declamation, 
we pi'cfcr a language that may obtain credit by its moderation : — to say 
?imj>ly that the rankness of suspicion is as fatal to General Grant, a? 
President of the Ignited States, as might be the force of conviction, so 
(ar as to determine that he can no longer serve the peoi)le, because no 
longer trusted by them. And this moderate and indisi)utablc proposi- 
tion is alone, sufficient to determine a change of rulers. It is to say 
that, in the hands of (ileneral Grant, the government has become such a 
subject of suspicion that its whole nsefulness is gone, and it is unable U> 
serve the public interests in any respect — even in that appai'cntly most 
distant from the (piestioji of personal character in the President. AVc 
are aware that there is a wretched casuistry wdiich would separate tlip 
■honor of the government from the Avelfare of the country, and would 
account th(^ question wliether the President be an honest man or not, 
but a "trim reckoning" of Falstaffian humor, or but a slight concern, 
personal to himself, and not necessarily involving the public fortunes 
of his administration. But the two are insei)arable ; it is a sublime les- 
son — a grand truth — that the usefulness of a government cannot survive 
its honor. The latter is not only the ornament of governments, bnl 
iheir indispensable support. AVe may quote a sentiment from ./?uw".v, 
in a letter once addressed to a venal Crown in ICngland, not oidy for the 
severity of its truth or the aptness of a parallel, but as containing Avhat 
is, lo our mind, the finest meta})hor in the English language : 

"The ministry, it scorns, are hiboring to draw a line of distinction betwoi-n the honor 
of the Crown and the rights of tlie people. Tiiis new idea has yet only heen started in 
dijcour«8 ; for, in effect, both objects have been equally sacrificed. I neither understan<l 
the di;«ti»cti«n, nor Avhat use the ministry propose to make of it. The king's honor is 
tliat of his people. Their real honor and real interest are the same. I am not contend- 
ing for a, vain punctilio. A clear, unblemished character comprehends not only the 
intey:rity tJiftt will not offer, but the spirit that will not submit to an injury ; an<l whether 



FOR HORACE GREELEY. li 

it heloiigis !() an iiulividiial or a community, it isthe Ibuuclatiouof peace, of iiidependeuct!, 
and of sidely. Public credit is wealth ; public honor is security.) The feather thai 
adornit the ruiidl liird .iii/tjiorts; his ffight. Strip hini of his ])Uunat;e, and you fix liiui 
to the earth." 

WHAT KIND OF A PRESIDENT MR. (iREELEV AVOULD MJlKE. 

iMr. (ili'CH'lfy, an honest maii, in prosaic sooth, " the noblest work of 
God," is tJie President to make onr government usefnl at home and re- 
spected ai)road ; to give it a new authority, and a power to etfect 
obedience, witliont bayonets, in a renewed public confidence ; by the same 
element, to adorn it yet once more in the world's eyes; and, in all, to 
raise the sioiuil of return to that traditional purity of the Republic of our 
ancest(ji"s, when public office was considered not only a power acquired, 
but a trust accepted, as sacred in its honor as any that could be con- 
tracted V)et\vceu individuals. 

THE QUESTION OF THE NEGRO. 

But returning to the considerations which peculiarly recommend Mr. 
Greeley to the support of the South, it is natural that we should exam- 
ine him with anxiety on the question of the negro — a question which 
enters so largely and intimately into both the political and social condi- 
tion of the South. 

MR. GREELEY ON NEGRO EQUALITY — " MIXED SCHOOLS," ttC. 

Here Mr. Greeley has suffered much, as well from hasty conclusious 
as from obstinate j)rejudices. As an instance of the persistence ami har- 
dihood of misrepresentation in a political campaign, we notice that some 
so-called Democratic newspapers, not satisfied with hounding Mr. Gree- 
ley's record in the war, have even, since the Cincinnati nominations, 
invented the clamor for a Southern market, that he has come out in 
flavor of '• mixed schools" and negro equality in a worse sense than that 
dogma has yet been imposed upon the South. The misrepresentation is 
macie by a torture of some words recently spoken by him to an assem- 
bly of negroes in Poughkeepsie, New York. The words, so far as they 
are material, are: 

"1 am not at all sure tliat the colored race will not, as they now do, as a rule, prefer 
their own society, and prefer to have churches and seminaries and colleges of their own. 
Nor am I clear that this would not be a wise choice. So then, I say, with regard to our 
common schools, where a rural district contains but twenty-five or thirty families, it is 
simply impossible, where two or three of these are colored, to have si^parate schools, and 
in those cases to say that black children shall not go to school with white children is to 
say they shall not have any school whatever. But iji communities such as these, while, 
if 1 were a black man, I should not ask separate schools, yet I should still say if the 
whites chose to have separate schools I should not object to it, I should only ask that 
the schools for my children should be made as good, as sufficient, as schools provided 
for other men's children. Then, if the majority chose that the minority should b« edu- 
cated in separate schools, I should say, ' Gentlemen, be it as you please ; 1 have no choice 
iu the mattei.' " 

Now, every word of this we, as Southerners, not only endorse, but 
applaud. It suits the Southern position exactly, that "mixed •gIiooIs" 



28 A SOUTHERN HISTORIAN'S APPEAL 

would be unwise in the South, where the negroes are numerous, indeed 
bO niimerous as to aspire, as a matter of their own pride and self-asser- 
tion, to have schools, churcho;s, <fcc., of their own, while it may be 
applicable, as in the case suggested by Mr. Greeley, to communities in 
the Xorth — and it is there precisely that the South would have the 
application made. W^e who live in the South know very Avell that the 
negroes here do iiut aspire to such social equality as Senator Sumner and 
other negrophilists have been insisting upon for them ; that, on the con- 
trary, they, as Mr. Greeley opines, " prefer their own society," and even 
take a pride in having schools and churches of their own ; and that, 
instead of such "equality" as would intrude them into M'hite company, 
where they were unwelcome, they are well satisfied with eguiculenci/ — 
and " equivalency " they should have, as Mr. Greeley expresses it : 
"schools," or any other accommodation "as good, as sufficient" as those 
provided for tiie ^vhite citizen. It is equivalency which the South is 
willing, in all respects, to concede to the negro, where the mere external 
or technical "equality " would mean nothing for him but a wanton vio- 
lation of the feelings of wdiite men, and a mortification and a disadvan- 
tage to the negro himself. But Avhcn this equivalency of different 
schools and churches is impracticable, as in the disproportion between 
whites and blacks in the North, then, insists Mr. Greeley, "to say that 
black children shall not go to school is to say that they shall not have 
any school whatever." And this is precisely our jiosition ; equivalency 
as far as the law can give it, wliere it is a " Avisc choice " of the negro 
to prefer (jliurches, seminaries, and colleges of his OAvn, as a matter alto- 
gether of interest, of instinct and of commendable pride — as in the 
South ; and " equality " to tlie very letter and outAvard sign and in the 
teeth of all prejudice, where such accommodation of the negro cannot 
be, or is not afforded — as in the North. And this dis])oscs of the whole 
cpiestion with a neatness and sufficiency, and such a color of poetic jus- 
tice in a })cnalty devised as upon Southern pride, recoiling as upon its 
authors that there is nothing lefl to be said — certainly nothing to be 
complained of by a Houfherner. 

Indeed, so coincident arc Mr. Greeley's views of negro equality with 
what this Avriter himself has urged from a Southern standpoint, that 
he may aptly (piote here a part of his own recent commentary on Sena- 
tor Sumner's, obnoxious bill, to force the admission of negroes into 
schools, churches, hotels, theatres and all places where the white man 
has heretofore chosen to be exclusive : 

" Curious and paradoxical as it may at fii-st appear, our opposition to Mr. Suainer's 
measure is in l)ehalf of the negro — tlie very party whom it prot'e=sed to serve. It is no 
occasion of detriment or of peculiar alarm to the white people of the South ; whatever 
of i-eally worthy social superiority they have, must, eKsentially, be secure from laws. 
But for the negro, we protest that for mere paltry gratifications, which he should have 
sense enough to Icnow never can effect his social ecjiudity with the white persons with 
whom he is brought into a contact purely accidental and temporary, and which never 
can possibly give him any solid satisfaction since he must always enjoy the short lived 
entertainment at the penalty of self-respect in intruding where he is not wanted, he 



FOJl HORACE GREELEY. 29 

should barter tlie certain consequences of inflaming against liiixi.selt' prejuiJiees ol race, 
ajid creating a source of had lilood and of enmity to persecute and destroy him. Mr. 
Sunaner's propo.'sed gifts ouu be no possible equivalent for consequences so serioua. They 
are unreal — they mean notliing, even for the ambition and vanity of the negro ; he ha« 
been seduced to take part in a game of taction, in wliich he can po.ssibiy win nothing, 
and plays his substantial interests against a stake of counterfeits. 

" It is true that Mr. Suinner was able to secureforhis bill the color of negro petitions ; 
and yet those M'ho know anything of the tlisposition of the negjoes of the South, must 
be convinced that as a race or people, they were not truly represented in this demand 
for a strained equality, though many of tJiem might have been over-persuaded or entrap- 
ped to serve unconsciously the purposes of a faction. Indeed, the factious character of 
Mr. Sumner's bill is indicated by the test that no popular movement of the Southern 
negroes can be found to which it answers ; there can be discovered nothing correspondenl 
to it in any condition of the negro mind, any of its known aspirations or cxcitemencs. 
It is a measure originated entirely out of the Senator's own hands, and in which the 
negroes, as a mass, have shown no sign of interest, and to-day, if rightly examined on 
the subject, would repudiate and oppose it." 

We repeat tlitit the Southern negroe.s takea"liaturul and commendable 
pride in having institutions of learning, of worship, and of social exer- 
cise of their own. "They prefer their own society," unless where they 
have been prompted against this natural instinct for purposes of "black- 
mail," or in schemes of agitation. And in this preference and pride we, 
with Mr. Greeley, would encourage them ; with the distinct reservation 
that where any substantial rights measurable in law should be denied 
them through the separation of races, then the separation should be 
effaced, and give way to the higher demand of equality before the lav,'. 
Surely the negro can ask no more. And is there a Just aiid conscien- 
tious Southerner who would have him to ask less? 

THE EASY ART OP MISREPRESENTATION. 

There is jiothing which gives us more real distress in life, and because 
we find it at ever}- turn, than the easy art of misrejyresentatlon. Evei*}^ 
political controversy bristles with this annoyance ; and reading, which 
might otherwise be an instructive employment or an interesting pastime, 
becomes an insufferable exasperation through what we see in it so con- 
stantly of this crime of cowards in the noblest arenas of argument. And 
then this art of misrepresentation is so easy : its facility offers sucli 
temptations to those who are indolent in their modes of thought, or 
cowardly in those of attack. The most indifferent intellect may do its 
work. It is only necessary to omit some element in a given case, to 
conceal some qualifying circumstance, and presto, the work is done with 
due plausibility and effect," 

Thus, Ave notice that Mr. Voorhees in a recent speech to his Indiana 
constituencv by which he has chosen to supplement his Congressional 

'■''Messrs. Editors of the Lynchhurfj Republican — ■•■ ••" "'" ■•'' * * 

When the undersigned wrote of the " easy .irt of misrepresentation," he then hesitated 
to distract his argument by a personal allusion, or to burden it with any explanation 
peculiar to himself. Yot, what he is to say, here and now, may be useful as an addi- 
uotml and striking illustration of how the most innocent may suffer greatly in reputa- 
tion by the mere omis&:on of his accusers to account or lo represent truly a single point 
of distinction. 

In other times, the present writer wrote a good deal to show ihe utter incompetency 



30 A eOTITHERN HISTORIAN'S APPEAL 

tirade against Mr. (ji'celey, misrepresents him as the adsoeate of" the ex- 
tj'emest abomination of negro equality; and does it just by clouding one 
little but all important distinction, which we have just reviewed. It 
is the distinction ber^\'een efjuaHty and equiralency. Now we repeat 
substantially that ^\'hat Mr. Greeley did say in his Poughkeepsie 
speech, which lias been challenged, was that though he hoped I'or tiic 
time when our schools, etc., might be opened with perfect freedom and 
hospitality to all, yet he was persuaded, and he thought it "wise," that 
tilt! negroes from their numbers in the South and their disposition in 
eonse«{nence of these very numbers to " prefer their own society," should 
take tlieir ciiKo/ih/ in the shape of equivaleney , i. e., in having "as g(3od 
and sufficient" schools as the whites; while in the North, from tiieir 
paucity of numbers I'endering it impracticable to obtain separate accom- 
modation, th(; negroes tli^re might have to take their ecpialit}- as literal 
eqaalUy involving the absolute contact and association of whites and 
bla(-ks'! 

And to this the South responds, "Amen," " Amen," with the fervor 
of a camp-meeting. 

OPPORTUNITY OF UNION BETWEEN THE NEGROES AND " CONSER- 
VATIVES. 

Mr. Greeley has spoken on this subject of " ecpiality" with exceeding- 
wisdom to the negroes, on the one hand, and with signal acceptability 
to the people of the South on the other ; and here, as on other issues, he 
atfords that ground Avhereon the negroes and the native whites of the 
South may stand together in supporting him, which Ave have heretofore 
remarked as one of the greatest and most peculiar advantages to the 
South of his personality as a Presidential candidate. That alliance, to 

of Jefferson Davis as President of the Southern Confederacy. On this the clamor was 
raised against him tliat he had villitied the cause and people of the South, and that he 
oould have done so for no other reason than to acquire favor in the North I This cen- 
sure had a certain plausibility to captivate the foolish and those too indolent to think ; 
U acquired circulation ; again and again the writer interposed explanation, but misrep- 
re.-ientations die hard, and, to-day he may be to some extent a sutlerer from this most 
absurd accusation. Now, this misrepresentation was done by simply slurring the dis- 
tinction between Mr. Dncis and t/tc cause represented by the people of the Souili. 
Indeed, so far from the writer having villified the South in these respects, his very effbit 
to show that the Confederacy had failed from tlie incompetency of its rulers, and not 
from any fault or delinquency of its people, not from failure of their virtue or lack of 
their exertion, was calculated to defend and vuidicate the people o/ the Suirth^ and to 
jdve them from a possible, or, indeed, a likely misconception in history. To "show up" 
•Mr. Davis was simply to do them historical justice ; to show that the " lost cause" had 
not been lost by any fault or shortcoming of the!r>. And yet how has this ollice of the 
writei', which might have claimed the gratitude of the South, instead of ileserving its 
least word of censure, been misrepresented — and all by abusing or ignoring a distinction 
that might be put in mice, that is within the periphery of a nutshell. 

After thia slight episode of personal explanation, the undersigned will 

resume, as occasion may oii'er, leisure afford, and your courtesy permit, his ''Commen- 
taries on the Political Situation," in succeeding numbers of the Replulicwm. He never 
asks favors of his readers. He has but one guide to an audience. It is that the man 
who is not able to command att«ntion. never deserve* it. , 

Edward A. Pollard. 



FOR HORACE GREELEY. gl 

'^vhich the name of Horace Greeley is to give poi^sibility at last, ancl after 
"o many vain attempt.* to effert it, is the orowning advantajre of the. sup- 
port Avhich he <-laiiiis from the South — a .support Mhich the Southern 
hliK-k man and the Soutliern Avhite man Jiave eneli, in \u^ own e.'^tateand 
'■()!u]itiou, reason to give. "J'o unite tlieni in Mr. Greeh^y's .support 
'Aouhl answer:! ])robIem of Southern statesmanship, would insureSouth- 
f-rn pacltication, would date anew Southern jn'osperity and Southern 
poAver, and realize the vision which lias too long flonted in our (h'eams 
isnd he-s^itatcd in our hope.*! — a New South. 

* '''' in another artich^ we shall <'tiii.sider Mr. Greelev a.^ 

(K'cnpving the Cincinnati Platform, and thcobligations of Hie Democratic 
p.iitv (not <'\cep<iiig Mr. Daniel W . Voorhees) to snppoH him Hi^rp. 



[No. 4.] 
ME. GREELEY ON THE CINCfNKATl PL.\TFORxM. 

We adhere to the form of ]>ersonal allusion to Mr. Voorhees, not be- 
cau.'^e he is really personally important, but because in the fir.?t instance. 
we adopted that form as a mere convenietice in the order and arrange- 
ment of our argument. He has been used simply as the thread to hold 
together a patched and desultory discourse ; and we do not know that 
he has any such personal distinction as might justly resent the indiffer- 
ent service we have constrained him to render us. 

Shortly after the Cincinnati nomination, Mr. Voorhees telegraphed 
the following mes.sage to his Indiana constituency : 

Washington, D. C. iMay 4, 1872. 
Ed'for of t/ir Trrre Havte Journal : 

The Democracy will meet as usual in National Convention, and through its author 
i^^ed delegates nominate its candidates, and declare its policy. Until then no man has 
the right to commit the party as to its future action. Its organization and principles 
ifhould be maintained at all hazards. D. W. Voorhees. 

Indeed! — And yet the telegraph wires had scarcely carried this mes- 
.sage to its destination when Mr. Voorhees did attempt, in an arrogant 
way, to commit the Democratic party as against Mr. (xrecley ! What 
will he say of his own speech delivered among the benches of (\)ngress, 
to govern political action of a party and the peo2)lc in a matter, Avhich, 
whatever else may be its situation, most certainly lies -wholly outside of 
Congre.ss, and that arena of Mr. Voorhees' employment. 

Not satisfied with this outrage in Congre.ss, it appears that Mr. Voor- 
hees left his seat and dirty there, to post to Terre Haute, and make a 
second attempt to commit the Democratic party, and especially his own 
constituency, against Mr. Greeley. This effort is yet the more remark- 
able of the two. 

MR. VOORHEES PUT.S HIS FOOT J^' IT. 

It will sometiiues happen that when a speaker disdains to be logical 



32 A SOUTHERN HISTOEIAX'S APPEAL 

and pains-takii)g in liis nictluxis ol" •■oiii posit ion, and trusts only to the 
vijror of his passions to caiTy him tlirougli, )ie will fall into some verv 
plain contradictions of himself. But wc have nevei' known an insfancp 
of oiie being- so nicely and etrectually ensnared by his inconsistencies ^- 
iMir rhetorical friend iVom Indiana. 

Fn the beginning of Mr. Voorhees' speech at Terre Haute, following 
U|> his ill-timed and ill-mannered Congressional attack on IMr. Greeley, 
he is quick to complain that Mr. Greeley has not created such a division 
in th(i Republican party as to justifv the Democratic party in uniting 
witii him ! And yet in another and concluding part of his speech, he 
nrgues that Mr. Greeley has made so (/real a division in the Republican 
party that the Democratic party may indulge a tair liope of driviiig in 
in a coach-and-six through the breach Avith a third candidate, and elect- 
ing such J^-esident of the United States ! Tlie two positions are in direct 
antagonism, flatly contradicting each other. It is one of the neatest 
cases of self-contradiction we have ever known. It is one of those in- 
stances of irreconcilable interval between two jn'opositions to whicii 
applies the vulgar apothegm of minds muddled and embarrassed to know 
what to believe: " there is a lie out someivhei^e.''' 

THE SOUTH WANTS A "SURE THlNMi." 

\ow tb<' very fiict, which for ari>ument only we allow Mr, Vourhf^er-, 
thnt Mr. (ireelev has created sucha diversion Irom the Re[)ublican pMrty 
that the Democrats might have even the slightest ])<)ssibility of defi'Mting 
Grant with a third candidate, is to our mind the best argument for 
making the thing sure by the combination of Democrats with Mr. ilrtH'- 
\o\ and his followers. Th >. South, at least, is in no condition to make 
cxperimeuts, and the most j'oi-lorne ones at that, if indeed we can con- 
sider them as existing at all ; she Avants a " sure thing," Avhere the 
question is as of life or death to her — the question whether the despot- 
ism that oppresses her shall be disarmed and overthrown, or shall l»e 
})ermitted to grind its heel into her broken heart for four years longer. 

J low THE CINCINNATI NOMINATION WAS CALCULATED. 

The Cincinnati Convention was placed in the necessity of obtaining 
bv its candidates the favor of both Republicans and Democrats. In 
this position which, essentially, was one of ambidexterity, the critical 
question Avas, to Avhich side its Jiomination should more strongly address 
itself: should it be more directly calculated to please the Democrats or 
to AA'in votes from the Rcpublica^i party. On this alternative the Con- 
vention wisely decided to cast the balance in favor of elfect on Republi- 
cans, rather than for conciliation of Democrats; on tjie calculation that 
the latter could scarcely hoi]) itself, anyhoAv, from ev(?ntually giving iu 
its adhesion to its candidates, as the only hope of defeating Grant. And 
in this decisioji it acted Aviscly and ingeniously. The (juestion thus be- 
came to find the man AA-hom the Democratic party might scarcely venture 
to reject, and Avho, at the same time, might command the largest possible 



FOR HORACE GRE:^LEY: ' . 33' 

following from the Republican party. And this question was eminently 
ansAvererl in Horace Greeley. 

Xor is it for the Democratic party — or tlie Southern portion of it, at 
least — to complain of the ingenious calculation of this decision ; since 
in the man Avho can make the largest split in the Republican party, they 
j-eally Jiax'e given them their best hope of defeating Grant. The very 
fact that Mr. Greeley had formerly strong associations with the Repub- 
lican party, and, that he yet has a continuing influence there, is thai 
which makes him jnost available now, and, indeed, should be esteemed 
n fortunate circumstance by all Avhosereal concern is the defeat of Grant. 
All the pronounced Republicanism and Anti -Democracy which Mr. Voor- 
hees luints from the past to discredit Mr. Greeley, is really of the very 
strength of the nuui to fulfil Democratic expectations now in the divi- 
sion of the Republican party and consequent overthrow of tiie reigning 
Radicalism at Washington. There has been no more axnite and gene- 
i-ous sentiment applicable to the present relations of parties than that 
uttered by Mr. Montgomery Blair, in the chai'acter of a Democrat no 
less in good standing in his party, and certainly much wiser there than 
Mr. Voorhees. He says: "Since Mr. Greeley has come to rescue the 
<'onntry from the brutal tyranny Avhich so degrades us all, my heart 
grows Avai'mer to him, and is purged of all resentment for the heavy 
blows he has struck us in past conflicts, by the reflection that it is only 
because he has been so stern an opponent of the Democracy through life, 
that he has it now in his power to save the country." 

rriE <)K(;axizatiox and principles of the DEMOciiA'rrc j'Art^' 

NOT TO BE IMPAIRED. 

Mr. ^^>orhees, in his message quoted above, grandly expounds lo the 
Democratic party : — " Its organization and principles should be main- 
tained at all hazards." AVell, who says to the contrary ? The Demo- 
cratic party, to support Mr. Greeley for President, is not asked to give 
lip any of the opinions which distinguish it as a party, and which may 
be jiecessary to " maintain its organization and principles." If is a por- 
fion of the Republican j^arty that has come to them, not they who hare 
fJONE to the Republican party. Or rather, to avoid any invidious com- 
parison, the two, without detriment to the opinions or organizations of 
f'ither, have come together on certain questions on which they are 
agreed, and with full liberty to each to act on those in which they are 
not agreed. 

" THE LIVING ISSUES OF OUR TIMES." 

The questions which are to be determined in the impending Presiden- 
tial contest are no longer questions of technical party politics. They 
:u-e great questions of constitutional import, and which have a special 
application to the South, not only in the character of the Democratic 
]iarty there, but as the Soath. They are — 

Whether local self-ffovernment shall be restored to the States of the 



34 "^v SvJTTTHERX HISTOKTAnV APrEAT- 

, ••• , 

South, and tli** riohts ui' all the fStatcs shall Ix' scciircil inidcra rc-airirmrd 
Constitution. 

Whether the Federal < iuNfrjimcnl -iiall he .-('N(_Tt'l}- limited t<> thf^ 
])o\vers Avlnch tJie Constitution nives it. 

A\'l)etii('r the ])oli(jy of "Reconstruction"" >iiall l>c t(.) cMend l'oroi\iu;^' 
;M)d fraternal sentiments t<; the South, or the challenge oi" the bayonet. 

\Vhether the \vhite.s of the South shall recover their freedom from 
military despotism on tlie one hand, and the robbery and o])|)i-essioii of 
eai-j)et-bag rule on the othei'. 

Whethei- the negroes and (he Jiali\<' ^\hites oi' ,llie S(»iith shall be 
reconciled by a nuitnal interest and the inspiration of a common candi- 
date for President, or the war of races be yet further e.\as])erated in the 
Soutli to conclusions too horrible even for imagination. 

AV'hether there shall be "amnesty" in the unaifected and inie(|ui\oea! 
souse of an end of a// penalties for the [)ast Avar; and inielligeiiee and 
character be once tnore given a voice in the governnient of the South. 

NoM' on these questions Liberal J^c])nblicans and Democrats arc well 
agreed — agreed, on each side, without conceding anything irom the sep- 
arate identity of each as a political ]>arty on of/icr <|uestioiis. r>nt tho>e 
which have been named are the living issues ol" nur times w hieli are to 
determine the l*residential election, and on whieli (he Hemo'-ratic pariy 
may agree, Avithout detriment to its distinctne.-s of organization or of 
action in all other res])ects ; mIiv then, thus agreeing, disagree ujxm men, 
or allow any other (piestion of men than the Jrfj'cr.^on/dii (iu'iimia : " i- 
he true, honest and capable ".'" 

NO On.Jl'X'TION To Tin: CINCINNATI IM ,.'.'IF< )i;.M . 

Mr. (ireeley, in accepting the nominati<»n ol (he (ineinnati Conven- 
tion, ingeniously remarks to them : " 'f hough thousands stand ready to 
condemn your every act, hardly a syllable of criticism or cavil has l)een 
aimed at your Platform." This is remarkable. The P/afforut then Hnds 
no opponents in the Democratic party. Rathe]-, it should lind there its 
most distinguished and emphatic advocates, since its doctrines, as far as 
they go, are jm'' cxcdlcncr Democratic. Tlu' Baltimore Convention 
eannot imjjrove for us the Cincinnati plat f( inn. It could only give us 
the »ame doctrine, though, perhaps, in other words, yet not more em- 
phatic or unequivocal than those Avhich the Cincinnati Convention ha.s 
already printed. Noav let us stick a pin here ; for it is the point of the 
whole argument. 

" i{KM ACl I i:ti(.i. " 

Now if the Cincinnati Plattbrm or its e<juiv.deiit is conceded l)y the 
Democratic party — and it iiiu,st be conceded — what objection can there 
be to Mr. Greeley ox it? Indeed, his personality in this situation, s<» 
tiir from being objectionable, is an additional rceommendation, and ibr 
this simple reason : that Mr. Greeley being an honest and faithful man, 
no mattw whatever else he may be, is more certain than any other man 



who could he phicecl upon said Platfomi to execute its engagements and 
cany it out in good fidth, as long as he expressly and distinctly promises 
to (to y(t. This is touching the gist of the whole question witli a sharp 
jjoiut. T\[c Democratic party want a platform of good material, and 
consti'iictcd s(|uare against Grant. They have it at Cincinnati. Now 
they want a Man upon who can be most relied upon when he says: 
"these arc my principles, and I Avill execute them." And him they 
may haA'c precisely and ex(;ellently in Horace Greeley — a man whose 
word gO(!S as far as that of any other man in America for good faith. 
And the only question left after the decision on the Platform is that of 
good fjuth : the Platform conceded, who is the man who will most faith- 
luUy carry it out if he engages to do so ? And again we answer, Horace 
Greele\'. His cngagenicnt is as perfect as words can make it to carry 
<jut the Platform ; and in the certainty of his engagements, in meaning 
what lie says, there is not a man in America who can compete with him. 
Thus stands the matter : if the Cincinnati Platform is so good that it 
cannot be improved upon, if therefore the Democratic party must accept 
it or its equivalent, tlien the concern having become only as to the 
<'xeeutor of tlie l^latform, the question becomes not what this or that 
candidate may think of any other subject under the sun, but what he 
may be relied U[)()n to do, if he accepts that Platform and promises to 
carry out its doctrine. Jf the Platform is really desii^able, then the most 
j)ronounced of Democrats upon it could give us no better assurance than 
(-'ould Mr. Greeley — nay, not aw equal assurance to his — that it would 
be realized or executed. Hence we say that the Platform and Mr. 
Greeley not only logically go together, but that really the first is im- 
proved l)y the last — the virtiie of the doctrine, whatever that may be 
hy the honesti/ of the man who is to execute it. 

THE LIMIT OF PERSONALITIES CONCERNING MR. GREELEY. 

All other questions of personality here, but the single one of good 
faith, are essentially excluded ; and on that question Mr. Greeley is secure. 
This properly closes the discussion and determines the controversy. All 
<tthcr personal questions are alien and impertinent; and certainly they 
i 1 1 become tliat party whose most distinctive and boasted tradition is : 
"measures, not men." Mr. Greeley's "acceptance" of the Cincinnati 
Platlbrm ]iroperly closes the door to any personal questions which may 
l»c raised ujDonhim; and as long as no one ventures to impeach the good 
laith on which that acceptance has been made and the honesty which 
will execute its engagements. That point gained, the question of persons 
is ended ; and the Cincinnati Platform is fairly engaged with the exist- 
ing iniquity at AV.i^liinp^on, the one against the other — " meamres, not 
'men. 

ME. GREELEY, HIMiSELF, ON THE QUESTION OF " PRINCIPLES." 

One of the best features of Mr. Greeley's letter accepting the Cincin- 
nati nomination is its exclusion of all personal aspects of fhe controversy 



'')G A ?,l>UTfi£^A' historian's APPEAL 

ill wlucli the American people have enlisted him. That excellent and 
independent journal, the Baltimore tSun, remarks : — " Indeed, it appeal's 
to us that all along there lias been entirely too much disposition on the 
part of a certain portion of the public and the press to exaggerate the 
importance of the personal characteristics and opinions of Presidential 
candidates, instead of treating them, according to the old-fashioned 
American idea, simply as representatives and exponents of opposite 
princijiles and systems. That some of our foreign born fellow-citi- 
zens should be betrayed into this error by their training undei* monarch- 
ical institutions and the traditions of personal government they have 
t>rought with them from the Old World, is not unnatural. That so 
many Americans, " Jiative and to the manner born," should lall into the 
iame loose way of thinking and speaking, can only be accounted for by 
the height and excess to which (executive power and dictation have been 
carried within certain periods. It is apparent from Mr. Greeley's letter 
that he has not forgotten the former maxim of all our old political 
parties, ' jn-inciples before men,' and that he regards tlie true issues pre- 
sented for the decision of the American people to be not merely personal 
ones between General Grant and himself, but the far more important one 
between the principles of peace, harmony, reconciliation and administra- 
tive reform, embodied in the Cincinnati platform, and the policy of force, 
hate, sectioualisni, personal and partisan domination, with which the 
present ruling spirits have become identified." 

AVhat can possibly be the source of pereonal objections to Mr. Gree- 
ley, since he is so fairly and unquestionably identified Avith the Cincin- 
nati platform, and himself, has so sunk liis own personality out of sight, 
as in a distinct contest of two setts of principles, arrayed against each 
other! The issue is fairly made and is, alike, unmistakable and una- 
voidable. The choice is between two policies brought t'/s-a-tJk*t, the one 
named " Grant" and the other " Greeley." Nulluni ed tertium ; and any 
affectation of such is only a disguise and an indirection of a vote for 
Grant. "All roads from Greeley lead to Grant." 

THE SEAL OF THE SOUTH TO A NEW BOND OF UNION. 

Our invocations for a choice as between these two are especially to the 
South. We want to see her making her choice with all possible una- 
nimity : the closest possible approximation to a unit,i)Oth at Baltimore 
and in the field for Greeley. AVe w^ant to see her once more in the 
character of self-assertion, no longer the slighted " poor relations" of a 
portion of a Northern Democracy, misused for its ambition or interests, 
but having a M'ill of her own, a great and distinct political element re- 
covered from the past, a power in t/ie land. We want to see her using 
the great opportunity she now has to recover her dignity- and power, by 
acting as a unit and in the character of her own interests. We want to 
see her governing, as she may, the decision of one of the most important 
national questions that has arisen since the days of her old political as- 
boeiations. We want to see her thus impressing her resumed character 



T 



FOR TIOKACK (IRfEETiFA'. •') < 

as *' The '-'oul/i " upuu the ]H)]iti(,'s of the rountiy, and thuL, aoL uti uuy 
instrument ui' delkuice, l)ut in the seals of a new bond oi* Union and 
Peace, 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



011 897 129 2 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




011 897 129 2 



Conservation Resources 



